Modern games consoles chug four times as much energy as their '90s counterparts

Your PS4 is a powerful bit of kit, but it's a guzzler compared to the humble Sega Mega Drive

We all love having a bit of a game, and with PS4 sales topping 30 million last month that trend is hardly going to shift - but a new energy report has revealed those modern gaming machines are so powerful they use four times the energy of their '90s equivalents.

The report, commissioned by British Gas and conducted by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), says it takes around 272 watts of electricity per hour to power a PS4 or Xbox One console - which translates to around £43 per year per machine. That might not sound like much, but when you consider it cost as little as £11 to power a Nintendo 64 the difference is considerable.

Former console greats such as Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo SNES and Sony's PlayStation 1 could run for 48 hours on just £1 of energy. These days, a single pound for get you paltry 22 hours on your Xbox One.

"While other modern household appliances like washing machines and fridge"s use less energy than they did twenty years ago, the cost of games consoles continue to rise," comments Daniel Colford, a Smart Energy Expert at British Gas. "This is not surprising given how much more functionality games consoles now have."